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<h1 data-aos="fade-down" id="covid-19-sentry">Covid-19 Sentry</h1>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" data-aos-anchor-placement="top-bottom" id="contents">Contents</h1>
<ul>
<li><a href="#from-preprints">From Preprints</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-clinical-trials">From Clinical Trials</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-pubmed">From PubMed</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-patent-search">From Patent Search</a></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-preprints">From Preprints</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>Situational shifts in habitual consumption: A longitudinal analysis of the effect of a COVID-19 lockdown on sugar-sweetened beverage consumption in England</strong> -
<div>
Objectives A key challenge for behaviour change is by-passing the influence of habits. Habits are easily triggered by contextual cues; hence context changes have been suggested to facilitate behaviour change (i.e., habit discontinuity). We examined the impact of a COVID-19 lockdown in England on habitual consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs). The lockdown created a naturalistic context change because it removed typical SSB consumption situations (e.g., going out). We hypothesised that SSB consumption would be reduced during lockdown compared to before and after lockdown, especially in typical SSB drinking situations. Design In two surveys among the same participants (N = 211, N = 160; consuming SSBs at least once/week) we assessed the frequency of SSBs and water consumption occasions before (Time 1), during (Time 2) and after lockdown (Time 3), across typical SSB and water drinking situations. We also assessed daily amount consumed in each period, and perceived habitualness of drinking SSBs and water. Results As predicted, participants reported fewer occasions of drinking SSBs during lockdown compared to before and after, especially in typical SSB drinking situations. However, the daily amount of SSBs consumed increased during lockdown, compared to before and after. Exploratory analyses suggest that during lockdown, participants increased their SSB consump¬-tion at home, especially if they had stronger perceived habitualness of SSB consumption. Conclusion These findings suggest that SSB consumption is easily transferred to other situations when the consumption context changes, especially for individuals with strong consumption habits. Habitual consumption may be hard to disrupt if the behaviour is rewarding.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://psyarxiv.com/wdx5k/" target="_blank">Situational shifts in habitual consumption: A longitudinal analysis of the effect of a COVID-19 lockdown on sugar-sweetened beverage consumption in England</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Transcriptomics Meta-Analysis Predicts Two Robust Human Biomarkers for Severe Infection with SARS-CoV-2</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Defining the human factors associated with severe vs mild SARS-CoV-2 infection has become of increasing interest. Mining large numbers of public gene expression datasets is an effective way to identify genes that contribute to a given phenotype. Combining RNA-sequencing data with the associated clinical metadata describing disease severity can enable earlier identification of patients who are at higher risk of developing severe COVID-19 disease. We consequently identified 356 public RNA-seq human transcriptome samples from the Gene Expression Omnibus database that had disease severity metadata. We then subjected these samples to a robust RNA-seq data processing workflow to quantify gene expression in each patient. This process involved using Salmon to map the reads to the reference transcriptomes, edgeR to calculate significant differential expression levels, and gene ontology enrichment using Camera. We then applied a machine learning algorithm to the read counts data to identify features that best differentiated samples based on COVID-19 severity phenotype. Ultimately, we produced a ranked list of genes based on their Gini importance values that includes GIMAP7 and S1PR2, which are associated with immunity and inflammation (respectively). Our results show that these two genes can potentially predict people with severe COVID-19 at up to ~90% accuracy. We expect that our findings can help contribute to the development of improved prognostics for severe COVID-19.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.06.06.22276040v1" target="_blank">Transcriptomics Meta-Analysis Predicts Two Robust Human Biomarkers for Severe Infection with SARS-CoV-2</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Zooanthroponotic transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and host-specific viral mutations revealed by genome-wide phylogenetic analysis</strong> -
<div>
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is a generalist virus, infecting and evolving in numerous mammals, including captive and companion animals, free-ranging wildlife, and humans. Transmission among non-human species poses considerable risk for the establishment of SARS-CoV-2 reservoirs, makes eradication difficult, and provides the virus with opportunities for new evolutionary trajectories, including selection of adaptive mutations and emergence of new variant lineages. Here we use publicly available viral genome sequences and phylogenetic analysis to systematically investigate transmission of SARS-CoV-2 between mammalian species, both non-human and human, to identify mutations associated with each species. We found the highest frequency of animal-to-human transmission from mink, compared with negligible transmission from other sampled species (cat, dog, and deer). Although inferred transmission events could be limited by potential sampling biases, our results provide a useful baseline for further studies. Using genome-wide association studies, no single nucleotide variants (SNVs) were significantly associated with cats and dogs; however, three SNVs strongly associated with mink and 26 with deer. These SNVs are candidates for future experiments to identify their role in differential pathogenesis, immune escape and host response modulation. Together, our results are consistent with sustained deer-to-deer transmission and highlight the importance of studying animal-associated SARS-CoV-2 mutations to assess their potential impact on human and animal health.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.06.02.494559v1" target="_blank">Zooanthroponotic transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and host-specific viral mutations revealed by genome-wide phylogenetic analysis</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Implications of Spike Protein Interactions with Zn-bound form of ACE2: A Computational Structural Study</strong> -
<div>
The COVID-19 pandemic has generated a major interest in designing inhibitors to prevent SARS-CoV-2 binding on host cells to protect against infection. One promising approach to such research utilizes molecular dynamics (MD) to identify potential inhibitors that can prevent the interaction between spike (S) protein on the virus and angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor on the host cells. In these studies, many groups have chosen to exclude a zinc (Zn) ion bound to the ACE2 molecule which is critical for enzymatic activity. While the relatively distant location of Zn ion from the S protein binding site (S1 domain), combined with the difficulties in modeling this ion have motivated the decision of exclusion, Zn can potentially contribute to the structural stability of the entire protein, and thus, may have implications on spike protein interaction. In this study, we explored the effects of excluding Zn on the structural stability and binding free energy of the ACE2-S1 protein complex. We generated two versions of an experimentally-derived structure of the ACE2-S1 protein complex: one with Zn and one without. Examining the differences between these two complexes during MD simulation, we found that the Zn-bound complex exhibited greater instability at nearly all residues except for the interacting residues, which were more stable in the Zn-bound complex. Additionally, the Zn-bound complex had a stronger binding free energy at all internal dielectric constants greater than one. Since binding free energy is often used to score inhibitors’ performances, excluding Zn could potentially have implications on inhibitor selection and performance, both in the ACE2-S1 protein system and other protein complexes that include the Zn ion.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.06.05.494906v1" target="_blank">Implications of Spike Protein Interactions with Zn-bound form of ACE2: A Computational Structural Study</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Modelling Lockdown Effects on Controlling the Spread of COVID-19</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The COVID-19 variant omicron is spreading rapidly, infecting about 1.2 million people in 2 months in Hong Kong from early January 2022. Locking down the city at the beginning of outbreak for an adequate period is effective in mitigation and suppression of disease transmission. However, it is difficult to implement the locking down proposal without strong supporting argument because of the accompanied economic loss. An appropriate mathematical model to provide key predictive information on the local epidemic and evaluate the effects of lockdown is reported in this paper. The number of susceptible citizens, infection cases and recovery number under some assumption on isolating citizens are predicted by solving the ordinary differential equations analytically. Observed infected cases during the fifth wave of outbreak in Hong Kong is taken as an example to illustrate the concept. Three lockdown scenarios are proposed and assessed by the developed mathematical approach. Early lockdown is illustrated to keep infected cases low, therefore very effective in controlling the spread by isolating the citizens in their own units.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.06.04.22275993v1" target="_blank">Modelling Lockdown Effects on Controlling the Spread of COVID-19</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Comparison of variant callers for wastewater-based epidemiology</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Wastewater based epidemiology (WBE) has been extensively used during the COVID19 pandemic to detect and monitor the spread of the SARS CoV 2 virus and its variants. It has also proven to be an excellent tool to complement and support insights gained from reported clinical data. Globally, many groups have developed bioinformatics pipelines to analyse sequencing data from wastewater. Accurate calling of mutations from RNA extracted from wastewater samples is key in supporting clinical data to make informed decisions on the prevalence of variants, as well as in the use of WBE as a molecular surveillance tool. However, wastewater samples can be challenging to extract and sequence, and performance of variant calling algorithms in this context has, so far, not been investigated. Analysis of the data and assignment of circulating variants depends heavily on the accuracy of the variant caller, particularly given the degraded nature of the viral RNA and the heterogeneous nature of metagenomic samples. To address this, we compared the performance of six variant callers (VarScan, iVAR, GATK, FreeBayes, LoFreq and BCFtools), used widely in bioinformatics pipelines, on 19 synthetic samples with a known mix of three different SARS CoV 2 variant genomes (Alpha, Beta and Delta), as well as 13 wastewater samples collected in London between the 15th and 18th December 2021. Using the Quasimodo benchmarking tool to compare the six variant callers, we assessed the fundamental parameters of recall (sensitivity) and precision (specificity) in confirming the presence of a variant within the population. Our results show that BCFtools, FreeBayes and VarScan called the expected mutations with higher precision and recall than iVAR or GATK, although the latter identified more expected defining mutations. LoFreq gave the least reliable results due to the high number of false positive mutations detected, resulting in lower precision. Similar results were obtained for both the synthetic and wastewater samples.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.06.06.22275866v1" target="_blank">Comparison of variant callers for wastewater-based epidemiology</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Transplantation of solid organs recovered from deceased donors recently infected by SARS-CoV-2 in the United States</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The COVID-19 pandemic has reduced access to solid organ transplantation, compounding organ shortages and waitlist mortality. A continued area of uncertainty is the safety of transplanting organs recovered from SARS-CoV-2 infected donors, as autopsies of patients who died with COVID-19 show that the virus can be found in extra-pulmonary organs1. Case reports and series on transplantation of these organs have been published 2 ,3, but population-level data is lacking. We queried a national transplant database for recipients of organs recovered from donors recently infected by SARS-CoV-2. In organs where there were over 50 cases, these were then propensity-score matched at a ratio of 1:10 to similar recipients of organs recovered from donors who tested negative for SARS-CoV-2 (controls). Data were extracted from the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients (SRTR - v2203 - updated March 2022), which collects detailed information on all solid organ transplants in the United States since 1985. Cases were defined as adult (≥ 18 years) recipients of organs recovered from deceased donors who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 by nasopharyngeal or lower respiratory sample polymerase chain reaction or antigen assay within 7 days of organ transplantation. Multiple organ transplants were excluded. There were 775 kidney, 330 liver, 123 heart, 44 kidney-pancreas, 16 lung, 5 pancreas, and 3 small bowel transplants of organs recovered from 393 deceased donors recently infected by COVID-19. For kidney, liver, and heart transplants, Kaplan-Meier curves of both overall and graft survival at 90 days were similar between cases and controls. Our data shows that transplanting kidneys, livers, and hearts recovered from deceased donors recently infected by SARS-CoV-2 was not associated with increased recipient mortality or worse graft-survival. This should help transplant providers make decisions regarding acceptance of these organs, and counsel transplant candidates on the safety of receiving them. The limited number of kidney-pancreas, lung, pancreas, and intestinal cases precludes significant conclusions for these organs. Our data also strongly supports the notion that donors with recent COVID-19 infection should not be automatically excluded from the donor pool. receiving them. The limited number of kidney-pancreas, lung, pancreas, and intestinal cases precludes significant conclusions for these organs. Limitations include lack of data on donor infection timeline and estimates of viral load (PCR cycle thresholds), description of donor COVID-19 symptomatology at organ procurement, donor or recipient vaccination or prior COVID-19 infection status, which are not tracked in the database. We did not have information regarding transmission of COVID-19 to transplant recipients. Median follow up time was short, a reflection of how recent these transplants are (see Appendix). Future analysis of updated versions of the database should help address. Our data strongly support the notion that donors with recent COVID infection should not be automatically excluded from the donor pool. Prospective studies are needed to confirm our findings and provide insights on optimal post-transplant management of these recipients.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.06.05.22276008v1" target="_blank">Transplantation of solid organs recovered from deceased donors recently infected by SARS-CoV-2 in the United States</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Global emergence of resistance to fluconazole and voriconazole in Candida parapsilosis in tertiary hospitals in Spain during the COVID-19 pandemic</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Background: Candida parapsilosis is a frequent cause of candidemia worldwide. Its incidence is associated with the use of medical implants, such as central venous catheters or parenteral nutrition. This species has reduced susceptibility to echinocandins and is susceptible to polyenes and azoles. Multiple outbreaks caused by fluconazole non-susceptible strains have been reported recently. A similar trend has been observed among the C. parapsilosis isolates received in the last two years at the Spanish Mycology Reference Laboratory. Methods: Yeast were identified by molecular biology and antifungal susceptibility testing was performed using EUCAST protocol. ERG11 gene was sequenced to identify resistance mechanisms, and typification was carried out by microsatellite analysis. Results: We examined the susceptibility profile of the C. parapsilosis isolates available at our Reference Laboratory since 2000 (around 1,300 strains). During the last two years, the number of isolates with acquired resistance to fluconazole and voriconazole has increased in at least eight different Spanish hospitals. Typification of the isolates revealed that some prevalent clones had spread through several hospitals of the same geographical region. One of these clones was found in hospitals from the region of Catalonia, another in hospitals from Madrid and Burgos, and two other different genotypes from Santander. Conclusions: Our data suggests that the epidemiological situation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic might have induced a selection of fluconazole-resistant C. parapsilosis isolates that were already present at the hospitals. Further measures must be taken to avoid the establishment of clinical outbreaks that could threaten the life of infected patients.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.06.06.22275514v1" target="_blank">Global emergence of resistance to fluconazole and voriconazole in Candida parapsilosis in tertiary hospitals in Spain during the COVID-19 pandemic</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Pathogen-Host Adhesion between SARS-CoV-2 S Proteins from Different Variants and Human ACE2 Probed at Single-Molecule and Single-Cell Levels</strong> -
<div>
Pathogen-Host adhesion is considered the first step of infection for many pathogens such as bacteria and virus. The binding of the receptor binding domain (RBD) of SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein (S protein) onto human angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) is considered as the first step for the SARS-CoV-2 to adhere onto the host cells during the infection. Within three years, a number of variants of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) have been found all around the world. Here, we investigated the adhesion of S Proteins from different variants and ACE2 using atomic force microscopy (AFM)-based single-molecule force spectroscopy (SMFS) and single-cell force spectroscopy (SCFS). We found that the unbinding force and binding probability of the S protein from Delta variant to the ACE2 was the highest among the variants tested in our study at both single-molecule and single-cell levels. Molecular dynamics simulation showed that ACE2-RBD (Omicron) complex is destabilized by the E484A and Y505H mutations and stabilized by S477N and N501Y mutations, when compared with Delta variant. In addition, a neutralizing antibody, produced by immunization with wild type RBD of S protein, could effectively inhibit the binding of S proteins from wild type, Delta and Omicron variants onto ACE2. Our results provide new insight for the molecular mechanism of the adhesive interactions between S protein and ACE2 and suggest effective monoclonal antibody can be prepared using wild type S protein against the Delta and Omicron variants by inhibit the pathogen-host adhesion.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.06.05.493249v1" target="_blank">Pathogen-Host Adhesion between SARS-CoV-2 S Proteins from Different Variants and Human ACE2 Probed at Single-Molecule and Single-Cell Levels</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>A uniquely stable trimeric model of SARS-CoV-2 spike transmembrane domain</strong> -
<div>
The spike (S) protein of SARS-CoV-2 effectuates membrane fusion and virus entry into target cells. Its transmembrane domain (TMD) represents a homotrimer of -helices anchoring the spike in the viral envelope. Although S-protein models available to date include the TMD, its precise configuration was given brief consideration. Understanding viral fusion entails realistic TMD models, while no reliable approaches towards predicting the 3D structure of transmembrane (TM) trimers exist. Here, we propose a comprehensive computational framework to model the spike TMD (S-TMD) based solely on its primary structure. First, we performed amino acid sequence pattern matching and compared molecular hydrophobicity potential (MHP) distribution on the helix surface against TM homotrimers with known 3D structures and thus selected the TMD of the tumour necrosis factor receptor 1 (TNFR-1) for subsequent template-based modelling. We then iteratively built an all-atom homotrimer model of S-TMD based on “dynamic MHP portraits” and residue variability motifs. In this model each helix possessed two overlapping interfaces interacting with either of the remaining helices, which include conservative residues I1216, F1220, I1227, M1229, and M1233. Finally, the stability of this and several alternative models (including a recent NMR structure) and a set of mutant forms was tested in all-atom molecular dynamics (MD) simulations in a POPC bilayer mimicking the viral envelope membrane. Unlike other configurations, our model trimer remained extraordinarily tightly packed over a microsecond-range MD and retained its stability when palmitoylated in accordance with experimental data. Palmitoylation had no significant impact on the TMD conformation nor the way in which the lipid bilayer was perturbed in the presence of the trimer. Overall, the resulting model of S-TMD conforms to known basic principles of TM helix packing and will be further used to explore the complex machinery of membrane fusion from a broader perspective beyond the TMD.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.06.05.494856v1" target="_blank">A uniquely stable trimeric model of SARS-CoV-2 spike transmembrane domain</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Discovery of Chlorofluoroacetamide-Based Covalent Inhibitors for SARS-CoV-2 3CL Protease</strong> -
<div>
The pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has urgently necessitated the development of antiviral agents against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARSCoV-2). The 3C-like protease (3CLpro) is a promising target for COVID-19 treatment. Here, we report the new class of covalent inhibitors for 3CLpro possessing chlorofluoroacetamide (CFA) as a cysteine reactive warhead. Based on the aza-peptide scaffold, we synthesized the series of CFA derivatives in enantiopure form and evaluated their biochemical efficiencies. The data revealed that 8a (YH-6) with R configuration at the CFA unit strongly blocks the SARS-CoV-2 replication in the infected cells and this potency is comparable to that of nirmatrelvir. The X-ray structural analysis shows that 8a (YH-6) forms a covalent bond with Cys145 at the catalytic center of 3CLpro. The strong antiviral activity and sufficient pharmacokinetics property of 8a (YH-6) suggest its potential as a lead compound for treatment of COVID-19.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.06.05.494897v1" target="_blank">Discovery of Chlorofluoroacetamide-Based Covalent Inhibitors for SARS-CoV-2 3CL Protease</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Cross-Cultural Adaptation and Validation of the 5C Scale to Identify Factors Associated With COVID-19 and Influenza Vaccine Hesitancy Among Healthcare Workers in Cape Town, South Africa – A Protocol</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Background: Healthcare workers are at an increased risk of acquiring vaccine-preventable diseases and are known to be reliable source of information for the patients and their relatives. Knowledge and attitudes of Healthcare workers about vaccines are thus important determinants of their own vaccination uptake and their intention to recommend vaccinations to their patients. However, culturally adapted tools and studies to address vaccine uptake and hesitancy as well as related behaviours among Healthcare workers in the Global South are limited. Methods: We propose a mixed methods project to understand the extent and determinants of vaccination hesitancy among Healthcare workers and construct a validated scale to measure this complex and context-specific phenomenon in Cape Town. We will summarise responses as counts and percentages for categorical variables and means with standard deviations (or median with inter quartile ranges) for continuous variables. We will run the Shapiro-Wilks test to assess the normality. Analysis of the variance, chi-square tests, and equivalents will be conducted as appropriate for group comparisons. Logistic regression models will also be performed to assess association between variables.  We will focus on the seasonal influenza and COVID-19 vaccine. We will use an existing tool developed and validated in Germany and the United States of America to measure five psychological determinants of vaccination (referred to as the 5C scale), as the basis to develop and validate a scale to measure the scope and determinants of vaccine hesitancy and acceptance among Healthcare workers in Cape Town. Discussion and conclusion: Through this study, we hope to expand the scientific evidence based on vaccination acceptance and demand among Healthcare workers in South Africa and build resources to enable better understanding of, detection, and response to vaccination hesitancy in Cape Town.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.06.06.22276038v1" target="_blank">Cross-Cultural Adaptation and Validation of the 5C Scale to Identify Factors Associated With COVID-19 and Influenza Vaccine Hesitancy Among Healthcare Workers in Cape Town, South Africa – A Protocol</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Correlates of protection, thresholds of protection, and immunobridging in SARS-CoV-2 infection</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Several studies show neutralizing antibody levels are an important correlate of immune protection from COVID-19 and have estimated the relationship between neutralizing antibodies and protection. However, a number of these studies appear to yield quite different estimates of the level of neutralizing antibodies required for protection. Here we show that after normalization of antibody titers current studies converge on a consistent relationship between antibody levels and protection from COVID-19.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.06.05.22275943v1" target="_blank">Correlates of protection, thresholds of protection, and immunobridging in SARS-CoV-2 infection</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Does place connectivity moderate the association between concentrated disadvantage and COVID-19 fatality in the United States?</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Concentrated disadvantaged areas have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19 outbreak in the United States (US). Meanwhile, highly connected areas may contribute to higher human movement, leading to higher COVID-19 cases and deaths. This study examined whether place connectivity moderated the association between concentrated disadvantage and COVID-19 fatality. Using COVID-19 fatality over four time periods, we performed mixed-effect negative binomial regressions to examine the association between concentrated disadvantage, Twitter-based place connectivity, and county-level COVID-19 fatality, considering potential state-level variations. Results revealed that concentrated disadvantage was significantly associated with an increased COVID-19 fatality. More importantly, moderation analysis suggested that place connectivity significantly exacerbated the harmful effect of concentrated disadvantage on COVID-19 fatality, and this significant moderation effect increased over time. In response to COVID-19 and other future infectious disease outbreaks, policymakers are encouraged to focus on the disadvantaged areas that are highly connected to provide additional pharmacological and non-pharmacological intervention policies.
</p>
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<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.06.06.22276053v1" target="_blank">Does place connectivity moderate the association between concentrated disadvantage and COVID-19 fatality in the United States?</a>
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<li><strong>Population-weighted greenspace exposure tied to lower COVID-19 mortality rates: A nationwide dose-response study in the United States</strong> -
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The COVID-19 outbreak has caused enormous deaths and profound social and economic disruption globally. Accumulating evidence suggests exposure to greenspace may reduce the risk of COVID-19 mortality. Greenspace exposure enhances immune functioning, reduces inflammation, and replenishes gut microbiota may protect against the risk of mortality among those with COVID-19. However, previous studies often fail to distinguish the health effect of different types of greenspace, explore the dose-response association and optimal buffer distance, and consider the spatial dynamics of population distribution and geographic locations of greenspace. This study examined the associations among ratio of different types of greenspaces, population-weighted exposure to different types of greenspaces, and COVID-19 mortality rates using a negative binomial generalized linear mixed effects model across 3,025 counties in the United States, adjusted for socioeconomic, demographic, pre-existing chronic disease, policy and regulation, behavioral, and environmental factors. The population-weighted measure gave proportionally greater weight to greenspace near areas of higher population density. Exposure to forest and pasture was negatively associated with COVID-19 mortality rates, while developed open space has insignificant or positive associations with mortality rates. Forest outside park has the largest effect size across all buffer distances, followed by forest inside park. The optimal exposure buffer distance is 1km for forest outside park, with 1 unit of increase in exposure associated with a 9.9% decrease in mortality rates (95% confidence interval: 6.9% -12.8%). The optimal exposure buffer distance of forest inside park is 400m, with 1 unit of increase in exposure, associated with a 4.7% decrease in mortality rates (95% confidence interval: 2.4% - 6.9%). Greenspaces, especially nearby forest, may be effective at lowering the mortality risk of COVID-19 patients. Our findings suggest that policymakers and planners should prioritize forestry within walking distance of residential clusters to mitigate mortality rates during current and future respiratory pandemics.
</p>
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<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.05.24.22275549v2" target="_blank">Population-weighted greenspace exposure tied to lower COVID-19 mortality rates: A nationwide dose-response study in the United States</a>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-clinical-trials">From Clinical Trials</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A Study to Assess the Safety and Immunogenicity of a COVID-19 Vaccine Booster in Healthy Adults</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Biological: Prime-2-CoV_Beta<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   University Hospital Tuebingen;   FGK Clinical Research GmbH;   VisMederi srl;   Staburo GmbH;   Viedoc Technologies AB<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Eucalyptus Oil as Adjuvant Therapy for Coronavirus Disease 19 (COVID-19)</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: Eucalyptus Oil;   Drug: Standard COVID medication<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Hasanuddin University;   Ministry of Agriculture, Republic of Indonesia<br/><b>Completed</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Study of Oral High/Low-dose Cepharanthine Compared With Placebo in Non Hospitalized Adults With COVID-19</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Asymptomatic COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: Cepharanthine;   Drug: Placebo<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine;   YUNNAN BAIYAO GROUP CO.,LTD<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Evaluation of COVID-19 Vaccines Given as a Booster in Healthy Adults in Indonesia (MIACoV Indonesia)</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Biological: Pfizer-BioNTech Standard dose;   Biological: AstraZeneca Standard dose;   Biological: Pfizer-BioNTech Fractional dose;   Biological: AstraZeneca Fractional dose;   Biological: Moderna Standard dose;   Biological: Moderna Fractional dose<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Murdoch Childrens Research Institute;   Universitas Padjadjaran (UNPAD);   Universitas Indonesia (UI);   Health Development Policy Agency, Ministry of Health Republic of Indonesia;   Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations;   The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>α-synuclein Seeding Activity in the Olfactory Mucosa in COVID-19</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Other: Real-time Quaking-Induced Conversion (RT-QuIC)<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Medical University Innsbruck<br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Randomized, Single-blinded, Multicenter Trial Comparing the Immune Response to a 2nd Booster Dose of COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine (Pfizer-BioNTech) or Sanofi /GSK B.1.351 Adjuvanted Vaccine in Adults</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19 Vaccines<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Biological: 2nd booster with Comirnaty® (Pfizer-BioNTech);   Biological: CoV2 preS dTM adjuvanted vaccine (B.1.351), Sanofi/GSK<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Assistance Publique - Hôpitaux de Paris;   IREIVAC/COVIREIVAC Network<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Immunogenicity and Safety of a Third Dose of COVID-19 Vaccine(Vero Cell), Inactivated in the Elderly</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Biological: COVID-19 Vaccine (Vero cell), Inactivated<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Sinovac Research and Development Co., Ltd.<br/><b>Active, not recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Efficacy, Safety and Immunogenicity Study of the Recombinant Two-component COVID-19 Vaccine (CHO Cell)(Recov)</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Biological: Recombinant two-component COVID-19 vaccine (CHO cell);   Biological: Placebo<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Jiangsu Rec-Biotechnology Co., Ltd.<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A Phase 1a Trial to Evaluate the Safety and Immunogenicity of a SARS-CoV-2 mRNA Chimera Vaccine Against COVID-19</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Biological: RQ3013;   Biological: Comirnaty<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Walvax Biotechnology Co., Ltd.;   Shanghai RNACure Biopharma Co., Ltd.<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A Phase 1b Trial to Evaluate the Safety and Immunogenicity of a SARS-CoV-2 mRNA Chimera Vaccine Against COVID-19</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Biological: RQ3013;   Biological: Comirnaty<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Walvax Biotechnology Co., Ltd.;   Shanghai RNACure Biopharma Co., Ltd.<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Treatment of COVID-19 Post-acute Cognitive Impairment Sequelae With tDCS</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   Cognitive Impairment;   Post-Acute Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 Infection;   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Procedure: Active tDCS and cognitive training;   Procedure: Sham tDCS and cognitive training<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   University of Sao Paulo;   Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Safety and Effectiveness of EV-Pure + WJ-Pure Treatment on Pulmonary Fibrosis Secondary to Covid-19</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   Pulmonary Fibrosis;   COVID-19 Respiratory Infection<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: EV-Pure™ and WJ-Pure™ plus standard care;   Drug: Placebo<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Vitti Labs, LLC<br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Long Haul COVID Rehabilitation &amp; Recovery Research Program</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Long Haul COVID or Post Acute Sequella of COVID - PASC (U09.9)<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Other: Virtual vs On Site Pulmonary Rehabilitation<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Lundquist Institute for Biomedical Innovation at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center<br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Safety and Effectiveness of Placental Derived Exosomes and Umbilical Cord Mesenchymal Stem Cells in Moderate to Severe Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) Associated With the Novel Corona Virus Infection (COVID-19)</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   COVID-19 Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome;   Respiratory Distress Syndrome<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: EV-Pure™ and WJ-Pure™;   Drug: Placebo<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Vitti Labs, LLC<br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Glucoside- and Rutinoside-rich Crude Material for Relieving Side Effects of COVID-19 Vaccines</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   Vaccine Adverse Reaction;   Side-Effect<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Dietary Supplement: Mulberry juice<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Taipei Medical University<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-pubmed">From PubMed</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Novel cleavage sites identified in SARS-CoV-2 spike protein reveal mechanism for cathepsin L-facilitated viral infection and treatment strategies</strong> - The spike (S) protein of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is an important target for vaccine and drug development. However, the rapid emergence of variant strains with mutated S proteins has rendered many treatments ineffective. Cleavage of the S protein by host proteases is essential for viral infection. Here, we discovered that the S protein contains two previously unidentified Cathepsin L (CTSL) cleavage sites (CS-1 and CS-2). Both sites are highly conserved among…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Performance analysis among multiple fully automated anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibody measurement reagents: A potential indicator for the correlation of protection in the antibody titer</strong> - CONCLUSIONS: The performance observed for each anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibody detection reagent was sufficient. The reference values based on the inhibition rate of sVNT have potential as indicators of the correlation of protection and are expected to be leveraged in automated antibody tests.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Review of Anti-inflammatory and Antiviral Therapeutics for Hospitalized Patients Infected with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2</strong> - Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection leads to dysregulation of immune pathways. Therapies focusing on suppressing cytokine activity have some success. Current evidence supports the use of dexamethasone in hospitalized patients requiring oxygen to decrease mortality. Interleukin-6 inhibitors, like tocilizumab and sarilumab, are also beneficial in hypoxemic patients, if used early. Janus kinase inhibition in combination with glucocorticoids is emerging as a potential…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Epitope Mapping of an Anti-Chinese/Golden Hamster Podoplanin Monoclonal Antibody</strong> - Chinese hamster (Cricetulus griseus) and golden hamster (Mesocricetus auratus) are important animal models of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infections, which affect several organs, including respiratory tract, lung, and kidney. Podoplanin (PDPN) is a marker of lung type I alveolar cells, kidney podocytes, and lymphatic endothelial cells. The development of anti-PDPN monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) for these animals is essential to evaluate the pathogenesis by…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Efferocytosis of SARS-CoV-2-infected dying cells impairs macrophage anti-inflammatory functions and clearance of apoptotic cells</strong> - COVID-19 is a disease of dysfunctional immune responses, but the mechanisms triggering immunopathogenesis are not established. The functional plasticity of macrophages allows this cell type to promote pathogen elimination and inflammation or suppress inflammation and promote tissue remodeling and injury repair. During an infection, the clearance of dead and dying cells, a process named efferocytosis, can modulate the interplay between these contrasting functions. Here, we show that engulfment of…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Melatonin and multiple sclerosis: antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and immunomodulator mechanism of action</strong> - CONCLUSION: Melatonin could exert a beneficial effect in people suffering from MS, running as a promising candidate for the treatment of this disease. However, more research in human is needed to help understand the possible interaction between melatonin and certain sex hormones, such as estrogens, to know the potential therapeutic efficacy in both men and women.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Interleukin-6 Elevation Is a Key Pathogenic Factor Underlying COVID-19-Associated Heart Rate-Corrected QT Interval Prolongation</strong> - CONCLUSION: For the first time, we demonstrated that in severe COVID-19, systemic inflammatory activation can per se promote QTc prolongation via IL-6 elevation, leading to ventricular electric remodeling. Despite being transitory, such modifications may significantly contribute to arrhythmic events and associated poor outcomes in COVID-19. These findings provide a further rationale for current anti-inflammatory treatments for COVID-19, including IL-6-targeted therapies.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection: Role of interleukin-6 and the inflammatory cascade</strong> - Since December 2019, a novel coronavirus that represents a serious threat to human lives has emerged. There is still no definite treatment for severe cases of the disease caused by this virus, named coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). One of the most considered treatment strategies targets the exaggerated immune regulator, and interleukin (IL)-6 is a crucial pro-inflammatory mediator. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) cases show an elevated level of IL-6 related to…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Omicron BA.1 and BA.2 Neutralizing Activity Following Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis with Tixagevimab plus Cilgavimab in Vaccinated Solid Organ Transplant Recipients</strong> - Neutralizing antibody responses are attenuated in many solid organ transplant recipients (SOTRs) despite SARS-CoV-2 vaccination. Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) with the monoclonal antibody combination Tixagevimab and Cilgavimab (T+C) might augment immunoprotection, yet activity against Omicron sublineages in vaccinated SOTRs is unknown. Vaccinated SOTRs who received 300+300mg T+C (either single dose or two 150+150mg doses) within a prospective observational cohort submitted pre- and…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The DNA glycosylase NEIL2 plays a vital role in combating SARS-CoV-2 infection</strong> - Compromised DNA repair capacity of individuals could play a critical role in the severity of SARS-CoV-2 infection-induced COVID-19. We therefore analyzed the expression of DNA repair genes in publicly available transcriptomic datasets of COVID-19 patients and found that the level of NEIL2, an oxidized base specific mammalian DNA glycosylase, is particularly low in the lungs of COVID-19 patients displaying severe symptoms. Downregulation of pulmonary NEIL2 in CoV-2-permissive animals and…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Inhibition of major histocompatibility complex-I antigen presentation by sarbecovirus ORF7a proteins</strong> - Viruses employ a variety of strategies to escape or counteract immune responses, including depletion of cell surface major histocompatibility complex class I (MHC-I), that would ordinarily present viral peptides to CD8+ cytotoxic T cells. As part of a screen to elucidate biological activities associated with individual SARS-CoV-2 viral proteins, we found that ORF7a reduced cell surface MHC-I levels by approximately 5-fold. Nevertheless, in cells infected with SARS-CoV-2, surface MHC-I levels…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A dual role for CRTH2 in acute lung injury</strong> - Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is a life-threatening clinical condition defined by rapid onset respiratory failure following acute lung injury (ALI). Its increased incidence due to COVID-19 and high mortality rate (∼40%) make the study of ARDS pathogenesis a crucial research priority. CRTH2 is a G protein-coupled receptor with established roles in type 2 immunity and well-characterized inhibitors. Prior studies have shown it also promotes neutrophilic inflammation, indicating that…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Impact of a blood-stage vaccine on <em>Plasmodium vivax</em> malaria</strong> - CONCLUSIONS: Vaccination of malaria-naïve adults with a delayed booster regimen of PvDBPII/ Matrix-M™ significantly reduces the growth of blood-stage P. vivax . Funded by the European Commission and Wellcome Trust; VAC069, VAC071 and VAC079 ClinicalTrials.gov numbers NCT03797989 , NCT04009096 and NCT04201431 .</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Development of a Rapid Immuno-Based Screening Assay for the Detection of Adenovirus in Eye Infections</strong> - Despite progress in fighting infectious diseases, human pathogenesis and death caused by infectious diseases remain relatively high worldwide exceeding that of cancer and cardiovascular diseases. Human adenovirus (HAdV) infects cells of the upper respiratory tract causing flu-like symptoms that are accompanied by pain and inflammation. Diagnosis of HAdV is commonly achieved by conventional methods such as viral cultures, immunoassays, and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) techniques. However,…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A Potent Neutralizing Nanobody Targeting the Spike Receptor-Binding Domain of SARS-CoV-2 and the Structural Basis of Its Intimate Binding</strong> - The continuous spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) around the world has raised unprecedented challenges to the human society. Antibodies and nanobodies possessing neutralization activity represent promising drug candidates. In this study, we report the identification and characterization of a potent SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing nanobody that targets the viral spike receptor-binding domain (S-RBD). The nanobody, termed as Nb-007, engages SARS-CoV-2 S-RBD with the…</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-patent-search">From Patent Search</h1>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-down" id="daily-dose">Daily-Dose</h1>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" data-aos-anchor-placement="top-bottom" id="contents">Contents</h1>
<ul>
<li><a href="#from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-vox">From Vox</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</a></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</h1>
<ul>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Two January 6th Defendants and the Consolidation of Right-Wing Extremism</strong> - As Congress searches for accountability, Guy Reffitt and Jessica Watkins remain defiant. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/two-january-6th-defendants-and-the-consolidation-of-right-wing-extremism">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>How Will Trump’s Primary Messages Affect the Midterms?</strong> - The former President has been sowing white-grievance politics and lies about election corruption from Pennsylvania to Wyoming, setting the scene for a potential constitutional crisis. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/06/13/how-will-trumps-primary-messages-affect-the-midterms">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The New Jobs Report Is Encouraging on Jobs and Inflation</strong> - The President deserves more credit for a growing economy, but public attitudes likely won’t change until there is progress on inflation. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-new-jobs-report-is-encouraging-on-jobs-and-inflation">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Iowa Primary Map: Live Election Results</strong> - The latest results from the Iowa primary ahead of the 2022 midterms. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/election-2022/live-midterm-results-iowa">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Montana Primary Map: Live Election Results</strong> - The latest results from the Montana primary ahead of the 2022 midterms. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/election-2022/live-midterm-results-montana">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-vox">From Vox</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>Why meat is so expensive right now</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="The refrigerated meat display case in a grocery store." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/IYQgJyhZMZ4dD6_gm2Kc1orhyjs=/347x0:5058x3533/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/70950846/GettyImages_1020707046.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Meat prices have risen far above inflation over the last year, leading some consumer protection and farming groups — and President Biden — to allege that big meat producers are price gouging. | Douglas Sacha
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Eat your veggies, beat inflation.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="e8iFNu">
Over the last year, you likely noticed a steep increase in your grocery bills. You may have just chalked it all up to inflation, and that’s certainly <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/inflation-food-prices-what-to-know-11645057714">played a major role</a>. But both the <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2022/05/10/remarks-by-president-biden-on-the-economy-5/">White House</a> and <a href="https://perfectunion.us/tyson-foods-price-gouging/">consumer protection groups</a> allege some meat producers are jacking up prices well beyond inflation — a practice known as price gouging.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VqnpTB">
Food prices at home have increased almost <a href="https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2022/food-prices-up-10-8-percent-for-year-ended-april-2022-largest-12-month-increase-since-november-1980.htm">11 percent</a> since last April, more than overall inflation (8.3 percent), but the cost of <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/cpi.pdf">meat, milk, and eggs</a> in particular has soared well beyond both measures. From April 2021 to April 2022, egg prices went up 22.6 percent, chicken is up 16.4 percent, milk and beef are up almost 15 percent, and fish and seafood are up 11.9 percent.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NIlPP2">
But most plant-based staples — like beans, rice, bread, fruits, and vegetables — have risen slower than the general rate of inflation for groceries (as have <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/cpi.pdf">cheese and ham</a>, two of the handful of exceptions in the meat and dairy aisles).
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="Grocery store prices for meat, milk, and eggs have risen much higher than inflation, while plant-based foods, like beans, rice, bread, fruit, and vegetables have risen below inflation. Eggs (22.6 percent), chicken (16.4 percent), milk (14.7 percent), pork (13.7 percent), fish and seafood (11.9 percent), dried beans, peans and lentils (9.8 percent), rice (9.2 percent), bread (9.1 percent), ham (8.8 percent), fresh fruit (8.3 percent), fresh vegetables (6.2 percent).&amp;nbsp;" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/KzC93jKQlCbGTHSui7o4Mv83jD4=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23611415/UXgVS_meat_milk_and_egg_prices_have_risen_much_higher_than_inflation_nbsp___2_.png"/>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PedC9J">
Tyson Foods, America’s largest meat producer, <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/meat-prices-pandemic-inflation-corporate-greed/">attributes</a> the company’s price hikes to higher demand for meat as well as increased labor and fuel costs combined with the <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/18/price-of-corn-hits-9-year-high-commodities-food-inflation.html">rise in the price of grains</a> fed to farmed animals. Meanwhile, the poultry industry has been ravaged by the <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23053296/bird-flu-chickens-turkeys-cull-depopulation-ventilation-shutdown">bird flu</a>, which has prompted producers to cull nearly 38 million birds this year — mostly turkeys and egg-laying hens using rather <a href="https://theintercept.com/2022/04/14/killing-chickens-bird-flu-vsd/">grisly methods</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kyWiW9">
Consumer protection advocates say these supply-side factors are partially to blame for the price hikes, but they also suspect big meat producers like Tyson Foods are making consumers pay more to fatten their profits.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ilf9nC">
Claire Kelloway of the Open Markets Institute, an anti-monopoly nonprofit, points to Tyson’s <a href="https://perfectunion.us/tyson-foods-price-gouging/">second quarter</a> earnings to understand how it might be using inflation as a cover to make more money.
</p>
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“[Tyson had] roughly $1.5 billion in higher costs, but that’s corresponded with <a href="https://perfectunion.us/tyson-foods-price-gouging/">$2 billion in price increases</a>,” she told me. “So that is a solid half a billion dollars that is not related to an increased cost of business. That’s purely an exercise of their market power and ability to charge more, and their profits really speak to that.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JlgdZW">
John Hansen of the Nebraska Farmers Union, which advocates on behalf of independent ranchers and farmers, put it more bluntly: “There’s no question there’s been price gouging <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/meat-packers-profit-margins-jumped-300-during-pandemic-white-house-economics-2021-12-10/">through the Covid disaster</a>, and there’s no question that that price gouging continues.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="taohAM">
Tyson Foods declined an interview request but pointed me to <a href="https://www.tysonfoods.com/what-economists-and-analysts-are-saying-about-meat-prices">economists and analysts</a> who refute the idea that meatpackers are price gouging, and <a href="https://www.tysonfoods.com/news/written-testimony-donnie-king-president-and-chief-executive-officer">testimony</a> from Tyson Foods’ CEO, Donnie King, given to the US House Agriculture Committee in late April on the matter. King reiterated that<strong> </strong>strong demand and increased labor and input costs were the main reasons for higher meat prices.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RQFlNg">
“Meat companies do not set prices for consumers,” Sarah Little of the North American Meat Institute told me over email. “Retailers do that.” She <a href="https://www.supermarketperimeter.com/articles/8202-retail-beef-prices-higher-despite-lower-wholesale-pricing">cited</a> a Texas A&amp;M economist who says some wholesale beef cuts have gone down in price while their retail price has risen. Tyson’s King also told the House committee that high prices have nothing to do with industry consolidation.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7DXAIX">
But that’s something experts like Hansen and Kelloway — and President Biden — dispute.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VgBPqM">
Kelloway says there is heavy market concentration in some parts of the produce aisle too, but it’s usually not as intense as it is for meat:<strong> </strong>In an <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22298043/meat-antitrust-biden-vilsack">article for Vox</a> last year, she reported that the top four corporations in each industry slaughter 73 percent of all beef, 67 percent of all pork, and 54 percent of all chicken in the US. “When there are so few players, it’s not hard to keep track of everyone and what’s called ‘tacitly collude’ and all move in the same direction on price. … So I think that definitely seems to be happening,” she told me. “Even though that’s evidence of excessive market power, it’s not actually an antitrust violation.”
</p>
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“We basically have four meat processors in the whole country,” President Biden <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2022/05/10/remarks-by-president-biden-on-the-economy-5/">said</a> a few weeks ago. “They process the meat that goes into the hamburgers you buy, so they set the price. When there’s no competition, they can set the price higher and higher.”
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sMCXlF">
Michael Mitchell of the Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive economic policy group, says some ranchers are getting a raw deal as well. Increasingly, US beef comes from ranchers who sign contracts with meatpackers to sell their meat at set rates, and Mitchell says the packers <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/27/business/beef-prices-cattle-ranchers.html">aren’t raising those rates</a> in tandem with their <a href="https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/economists-to-cattle-ranchers-stop?s=r">record profits</a>: “It’s really creating an environment in which ranchers get squeezed,” Mitchell said. “Because demand for meat is still relatively strong … the meatpackers can make a very, very healthy profit and the ranchers don’t see that.”
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="V7U7Sf">
There are Congressional <a href="https://www.warren.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/warren-rounds-introduce-bipartisan-resolution-directing-ftc-to-investigate-anticompetitive-practices-and-violations-of-antitrust-laws-in-beef-packing-industry">efforts underway</a> to rein in <a href="https://prospect.org/economy/time-to-tax-excessive-corporate-profits/">alleged price gouging</a> in the meat market, which <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22298043/meat-antitrust-biden-vilsack">long predates</a> this high inflationary period. And last month, the USDA proposed long-awaited <a href="https://www.ams.usda.gov/rules-regulations/transparency-poultry-grower-contracting-and-tournaments">rule changes</a> to the Packers and Stockyards Act, a 1921 law meant to prevent anti-competitive behavior in the meat industry, which antitrust advocates say has been <a href="https://competitivemarkets.com/gipsa/">weakly enforced</a>. The new rules would create more transparency around farmer contracts in the poultry industry, and more proposed rule changes are expected to come.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WQPOgi">
But whatever the price, demand for meat remains strong because it tends to be inelastic — economist-speak for the fact that increases in price have little effect on overall sales. While untangling competitive issues in the meat industry could take years, for those looking to save on their grocery bills now, the fastest way is to switch to less expensive plant-based foods.
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<h3 id="azj9Z9">
Eat plants, cheaply
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XlGG1O">
University of Oxford researcher Marco Springmann and his colleagues published <a href="https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S2542-5196(21)00251-5">a study</a> last year that found that in high-income countries, a flexitarian diet — a diet low in meat and dairy —<strong> </strong>reduces food costs by 14 percent on average. “In the [US], it’s even a bit more — more like 25 percent [cost savings] because US diets have so much meat and dairy, so there are lots of savings potential,” he told me. Fully vegetarian and vegan diets reduce food costs even further than flexitarianism.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Y5yO1H">
However, there’s one major caveat. The flexitarian, vegetarian, and vegan diets analyzed by the<strong> </strong>researchers comprise whole plant-based foods, such as fruits, vegetables, grains, and legumes — nearly all of which require cooking and preparation. They don’t include the packaged plant-based meat, milk, and egg alternative products that now line grocery store shelves, and which actually tend to cost more than their animal-based counterparts.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PjQc5u">
They’re not more expensive because of the basic ingredients, which are usually low-cost components like wheat, soy, peas, and vegetable oils. Rather, the startups churning out plant-based products don’t benefit from the economies of scale that big meat producers enjoy.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="E6kfIi">
Animal-based meat, milk, and eggs are also comparatively cheap in part because of <a href="https://www.ewg.org/news-insights/news/2022/02/usda-livestock-subsidies-near-50-billion-ewg-analysis-finds">government support</a>. For decades, the corn and soy fed to farmed animals has been <a href="https://grist.org/food/our-crazy-farm-subsidies-explained/">heavily subsidized</a> by the US government, and the industry has benefited from <a href="https://www.nifa.usda.gov/grants/programs/animal-programs">extensive government-funded research</a> on how to make factory farming more efficient. The meat industry also benefits from <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22298043/meat-antitrust-biden-vilsack">business-friendly regulation</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YWrm9T">
Despite the high cost of plant-based alternatives, <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2021/2/2/22260454/impossible-foods-burger-plant-based-meat">prices</a> are beginning to <a href="https://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Article/2021/03/24/Eat-Just-Inc.-closes-200m-funding-round-You-can-eat-an-animal-without-slaughter.-I-want-to-build-a-brand-around-that.">come down</a>. Plant-based startups often say price parity with conventional meat is a primary goal, and at least one claims to be <a href="https://thespoon.tech/rebellyous-develops-patent-pending-production-system-that-puts-plant-based-meat-at-price-parity-with-animal-meat/">getting close</a>: Rebellyous Foods in Seattle, which makes plant-based chicken.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="d8fASr">
Plant-based advocacy groups say <a href="https://gfi.org/securing-government-funding/">more government funding</a> for R&amp;D, like the meat industry has benefited from, would help startups like Rebellyous get there faster. That could give startups an edge, as a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/02/opinion/inflation-vegetarian-vegan.html">recent survey</a> found lower prices in the plant-based aisle could attract more consumers.
</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vFBM6n">
Springmann also says his findings should ease policymakers’ financial worries about measures to increase plant-based eating, such as putting more plant-based meals in schools or updating federal dietary guidelines. “People are often concerned with how expensive [flexitarian, vegan, vegetarian] diets are, but our study shows that actually if it’s healthier and more sustainable and more plant-based, you don’t need to worry much about [cost].”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VcTI0C">
Even as plant-based meat sales have jumped in recent years, US meat consumption has steadily increased with it, hitting a record high of <a href="https://www.nationalchickencouncil.org/about-the-industry/statistics/per-capita-consumption-of-poultry-and-livestock-1965-to-estimated-2012-in-pounds/">224.8 pounds per person</a> last year, with forecasts to go even higher in 2022. But sky-high meat consumption isn’t an immutable law of nature — Germany, the land of bratwursts, has seen a <a href="https://albertschweitzerfoundation.org/news/german-meat-consumption-at-record-low">steady decline</a> in meat consumption in recent years despite a strong economy, as have some other European countries.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZNJ1Dw">
But those of us here in the land of cheeseburgers and chicken wings do have the option of both <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22905381/meat-dairy-eggs-climate-change-emissions-rewilding">helping the environment</a> and reducing our grocery bill. Just follow the immortal words of parents everywhere: “Eat your vegetables.” And I’ll add one more: “<a href="https://cordis.europa.eu/article/id/429849-more-legumes-better-health-and-environment">Don’t forget legumes</a>.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mB5w8z">
<em>A version of this story was initially published in the </em>Future Perfect<em> newsletter. </em><a href="https://confirmsubscription.com/h/d/A2BA26698741513A"><em>Sign up here to subscribe!</em></a>
</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>What the TSA could teach Congress about gun control</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="Travelers stand in line at Ronald Reagan Airport ahead of the Thanksgiving Holiday; a flag hangs in the background." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/wnU74NXyNTJ8GZeqk8rF965nDKs=/0x0:3556x2667/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/70950723/625296548.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Why couldn’t gun buyers be pre-approved the way some travelers are? | Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
TSA PreCheck uses enhanced background checks to make everyone safer.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JheeZS">
With the country continually in mourning over gun violence — we keep seeing <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/05/us/philadelphia-shooting.html">mass shooting</a> after <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/05/us/chattanooga-tennessee-shooting/index.html">mass shooting</a> after <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/23141651/gun-control-american-approval-polling">mass shooting</a> — it’s time to find ways to prevent it, lest we remain the “<a href="https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1848971668">only nation where this regularly happens</a>.” Those solutions needn’t be new, and could perhaps be kind of banal, like the risk-based decision-making behind TSA PreCheck screenings.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6Oajm5">
The Transportation Security Administration introduced TSA PreCheck in response to September 11 to prevent future terror attacks on airplanes. The system has a dual mission: expediting travel for people who submit to enhanced background checks and making everyone safer by allowing the government to focus on people who are considered risky or whose risk is unknown.
</p>
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To qualify for TSA PreCheck, passengers undergo a screening process that determines whether or not they’re a risk. The process requires a questionnaire about biographical information and criminal history, fingerprints, and an in-person interview (exactly what’s involved in those background checks is classified). If approved, a so-called known traveler faces fewer security checks than everyone else. And by some measures, this system has been very effective. Experts say air travel has <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2021/09/07/air-safety-flight-9-11-anniversary/">become safer</a> even as threats have continued to evolve, partly since PreCheck allows the TSA to focus its attention on higher-risk travelers.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dYgziu">
As it considers a raft of new gun control legislation, Congress could learn a thing or two from TSA PreCheck. First off, a similar system for guns would require, at a base level, that everyone go through a federally standardized background check to get a gun, much like everyone has to go through airport security to fly. This would improve on the current state of background checks for guns, in which loopholes allow people to buy guns from private sellers or online without any type of background check. Gun laws also vary widely from state to state, which leads to a flow of weapons from less-strict states to stricter ones. Universal background checks are <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/23141651/gun-control-american-approval-polling">very popular on both sides of the aisle</a> and <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/09/13/key-facts-about-americans-and-guns/">even among gun owners</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cT40YL">
PreCheck-inspired background checks for guns could also be more thorough and use a wider array of signals than existing background checks for guns, which typically look at <a href="https://www.thetrace.org/2015/07/gun-background-check-nics-guide">just criminal records, institutionalization, and drug use</a>. For example, the Buffalo shooter <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/17/us/buffalo-mass-shooting-guns-suspect/index.html">obtained his gun legally</a> because he didn’t have a criminal record. A system that took into consideration more factors — his young age, the type of weapon he wanted to buy, and the amount of ammunition he requested — could have flagged him as a danger.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vhEeGO">
It’s also worth pointing out that travelers who have gone through the TSA PreCheck screening only need to do so once every five years. Adopting such a system for guns could mean that once gun owners are deemed safe, they can make purchases unencumbered — as long as they don’t do anything to nullify the approval — while the government directs its attention to those more likely to commit violent crimes.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wolIfc">
<a href="https://cs.illinois.edu/about/people/faculty/shj">Sheldon H. Jacobson</a>, a computer science professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign whose research was foundational for creating the TSA PreCheck system, thinks lawmakers could employ similar risk-based decision-making to counter the scourge of gun violence in this country. Using a variety of signals to determine who might be a risk for causing gun violence in the first place, authorities could better match resources with risk.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XJkAb1">
In a recent interview with Recode, Jacobson pointed out that millions of Americans have submitted themselves to background checks to get TSA PreCheck membership. They even do it for loans. Why are guns any different?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lV5KDF">
Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
</p>
<h4 id="B6qXTJ">
Rani Molla<strong> </strong>
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="u9OwO5">
How did TSA PreCheck come about?
</p>
<h4 id="d69Ezu">
Sheldon H. Jacobson<strong> </strong>
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kZ55kH">
The first thing that people realized after September 11 is we can’t treat everybody like a terrorist. We don’t have the money. We don’t have the time. We don’t have the resources. And we batted around that we would do differential screening, but the question was: How do you sell that to Congress? How do you sell it to the people that we would treat people differently? Will it work?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lbvmeo">
Basically, our research group undertook that problem. We did a proof of concept to establish that differential screening, if done appropriately, will actually result in more security and benefit to everybody, including the people who are of unknown risk. We made a presentation to the TSA in 2003 on this, and they accepted what we said. They basically ran it up the flagpole to get the salutes from the appropriate people in Congress to approve it. And then PreCheck started in 2011.
</p>
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<aside id="cSrM5J">
<q>This is a complex-enough problem that what you need are layers of policies as opposed to a single policy because no one policy will be airtight and capture every single potential perpetrator</q>
</aside>
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<h4 id="ZFLTJb">
Rani Molla<strong> </strong>
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SnEByf">
Could you explain to laymen what differential screening, or risk-based decision-making, is?
</p>
<h4 id="c1mgtw">
Sheldon H. Jacobson<strong> </strong>
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3GBC2F">
It’s matching risk and resources in an appropriate way so that you don’t use too many resources for people who have less risk. Meanwhile, you use an appropriate amount of resources when there’s people with more risk.
</p>
<h4 id="dnGu5M">
Rani Molla<strong> </strong>
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VSFZoI">
So what does that look like in the case of TSA PreCheck?
</p>
<h4 id="xtwEqp">
Sheldon H. Jacobson<strong> </strong>
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Zi2Fk7">
If you are willing to subject yourself to a background check, then there’s more information known about you. You then become a known traveler to the TSA. And because of that, they can apply a lower level of physical screening — what they call expedited screening at airports. You don’t have to take items out of your bags, for example. Everybody else who doesn’t have that is considered an unknown traveler, and then they apply a more enhanced screening protocol.
</p>
<h4 id="pxcyWn">
Rani Molla<strong> </strong>
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dmQXCp">
How do you measure whether it’s working?
</p>
<h4 id="tOWTfV">
Sheldon H. Jacobson<strong> </strong>
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="yAHNmX">
Well, there’s a couple of ways. The simplest is that there’s been no incident involving a terrorist act on an airplane in the United States since September 11.
</p>
<h4 id="C0fgIU">
Rani Molla
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZTYbHj">
Fair. But how does knowing someone’s background mean they’re not going to hijack the plane? How does the TSA PreCheck screening actually identify a threat?
</p>
<h4 id="7ouwFA">
Sheldon H. Jacobson<strong> </strong>
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WdONq4">
Exactly what the TSA does in the background checks is actually classified, so that’s not something that can be disclosed. Ultimately, they’re going to take your fingerprints, and they’re going to look into a whole bunch of things about you. Based on the information that they find, they will determine whether you qualify for PreCheck.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="88tdPv">
Then, when a bunch of people are preparing to board a flight, the TSA will make another assessment about how many people of high risk or, shall we say, unknown risks are going to be on an airplane versus people with no risk. All of this goes into algorithms to assess the risk of airplanes, and most planes have very, very low risk, which is why the system works so well. That’s why PreCheck helps everybody. It helps not only the passengers who have PreCheck, but also all the passengers who don’t have PreCheck.
</p>
<h4 id="5LBW6q">
Rani Molla
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8kqvSd">
Got it. How else is PreCheck useful?
</p>
<h4 id="1CXFj8">
Sheldon H. Jacobson<strong> </strong>
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0nApLe">
The other big benefit of PreCheck is getting people through the system much more efficiently. So as a result, they spend less time, you have happier passengers, you have a more efficient system, and you require fewer personnel at airports as well as less sophisticated equipment. The ideal is that 80 to 90 percent of all travelers are PreCheck qualified, and then, the checkpoints that we see at airports would be radically different because most people would go through PreCheck lanes and most of the lanes would be PreCheck. You’d have less personnel there and you’d have one lane for non-PreCheck passengers, and those people would be scrutinized very, very carefully. It saves the TSA around $1 per PreCheck passenger screening, so it’s around $1 million a day.
</p>
<h4 id="cbW2x0">
Rani Molla<strong> </strong>
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="I6IZH0">
What share of screenings now use TSA PreCheck?
</p>
<h4 id="bsC30Z">
Sheldon H. Jacobson<strong> </strong>
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9xhTvk">
It fluctuates between 40 and 50 percent of screenings. Remember, that’s not 40 to 50 percent of the people in the country who fly. There’s many people who are business travelers who will travel once a week.
</p>
<h4 id="G1gIVZ">
Rani Molla<strong> </strong>
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PCbCto">
So what can Congress learn from TSA PreCheck in trying to prevent gun violence?
</p>
<h4 id="hIIOBB">
Sheldon H. Jacobson<strong> </strong>
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="41PZMU">
People are looking for a one-size-fits-all law that will do everything: <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/23141651/gun-control-american-approval-polling">background checks, red flag laws, ban assault weapons</a>, whatever it may be. And the fact of the matter is that this is a complex enough problem that what you need are layers of policies as opposed to a single policy because no one policy will be airtight and capture every single potential perpetrator.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NrKlsP">
You see that in recent events, that each of them has its own unique characteristics. And you may say, “Well, the 18-year-old in Uvalde, he had just picked up the gun a few days before, and really his background — except that he was young and inexperienced — would not have indicated very many red flags.” On the other hand, his youth would have been a possible red flag as would his stated need for a firearm, the need for the type of ammunition, and the volume of ammunition that he was requesting.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Gxbx7Z">
All of these are layers that, when you put them together, I believe will amount to very airtight protection. But it also means that there will be obstacles for people to access weapons. There will be obstacles for people to access ammunition, and there may be delays. And some people will then argue that’s not fair, that’s not constitutional. But the reality is we’re going to have to make compromises to create these layers if we want the layers to be effective. If we want them to continue to not be effective, then we will continue to argue and not be able to get anything done.
</p>
<h4 id="26hrDP">
Rani Molla<strong> </strong>
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JKw073">
As many have noted, every time something this horrible happens — after Sandy Hook, for example — people assume that laws will change. But as you said, it seems like all Americans have done is argue, and that’s done very little to stop mass shootings in the US. How can we make sure something positive happens after Uvalde?
</p>
<div id="dBs58h">
<div id="datawrapper-maKRC">
</div></div></li>
</ul>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PeEa4u">
</p>
<h4 id="uD9izo">
Sheldon H. Jacobson<strong> </strong>
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PHUnNF">
We can find some common ground if we focus on what we’re trying to achieve, as opposed to the how. Let’s work on the how second. First, let’s find out what our objectives are. The objective is to reduce the number of preventable and premature deaths due to firearms. Very simple statement, and I believe everybody can agree with that objective. I can’t imagine anybody saying, “Oh, I can’t agree with that.”
</p>
<h4 id="z6AOsk">
Rani Molla<strong> </strong>
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="L3Aoia">
Right, but the how part is a bit of a sticking point.
</p>
<h4 id="zkwepu">
Sheldon H. Jacobson<strong> </strong>
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OwtxD0">
The how is the challenge. That’s why when you introduce layers, each layer may in fact be acceptable to some people. But it’s when you put them together that you get the impenetrable fortress that will reduce premature and preventable deaths.
</p>
<h4 id="Qkmhlo">
Rani Molla<strong> </strong>
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="IRut6x">
For guns, what does that look like? A lot more monitoring of who’s buying ammo and guns and their age and their background?
</p>
<h4 id="ktg4FZ">
Sheldon H. Jacobson<strong> </strong>
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Rop1a8">
These are all the things that <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/23141651/gun-control-american-approval-polling">everybody is discussing</a>, and that includes red flags and background checks. The thing about background checks and why they’re so important is that, once you submit yourself to a background check, you’re making a statement that you’re willing to have someone look under the covers. When the TSA vets you for PreCheck and they approve you, you become a known traveler. And in many ways, we want every single person who’s interested in purchasing a firearm to become a known firearm owner. That, itself, is a deterrent for bad behavior.
</p>
<h4 id="Unfdj0">
Rani Molla<strong> </strong>
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TbuJrt">
Because they know that they’re known?
</p>
<h4 id="mbTl7j">
Sheldon H. Jacobson<strong> </strong>
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Vi0cfi">
Yes, because they know that they’re known. And that’s why people who have PreCheck are very well behaved in your system compared to those who don’t. This is purely anecdotal, based on my conversations with people, but I believe it’s a reasonable statement: The TSA finds close to 5,000 guns every year at checkpoints. How many of them are PreCheck versus non PreCheck? They don’t report it and it’s never going to be reported publicly, but based on all my experience — but I have known no proof of this — the vast majority are not PreCheck passengers. PreCheck passengers are going to be careful when they go through because they’re more experienced, they know how to travel, and in some sense, they’ve been informed and vetted already.
</p>
<h4 id="5UwgNp">
Rani Molla<strong> </strong>
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sdpfYb">
While horrible, the vast majority of gun deaths in the US are not part of mass shootings, but rather <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/02/03/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/">suicides</a>. Could risk assessment be used to prevent some of those as well?
</p>
<h4 id="iJvp1I">
Sheldon H. Jacobson<strong> </strong>
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="IYgfHL">
I believe that anything we do to know more about people who are owning firearms, the more likely we’re going to have beneficial impacts on the well-being of people in the country when it comes to firearm safety.
</p>
<h4 id="AOtJoS">
Rani Molla<strong> </strong>
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1tpUhm">
You’ve <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/3507846-universal-firearm-background-checks-are-grounded-in-data-science-analytics/">noted</a> that we regularly go through risk screenings for much more banal stuff than guns, like travel and mortgages. Why are guns different?
</p>
<div class="c-float-right">
<aside id="m76fSu">
<q>If a legislator is against background checks, then they should be against PreCheck and they should relinquish their PreCheck status and they should never apply for a loan</q>
</aside>
</div>
<h4 id="NzWcid">
Sheldon H. Jacobson<strong> </strong>
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0nAnKF">
Great question. You can argue it’s based on the Constitution and the Second Amendment — now we’re getting into the psyche of people. It could be purely a political motive, that people want to retain their power in Congress, and the only way they can do that is to ensure they have votes. And there’s a group of people who just feel that they want to have the right to have a gun, no questions asked.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wcvi2J">
If a legislator is against background checks, then they should be against PreCheck and they should relinquish their PreCheck status and they should never apply for a loan. Because although the information being collected is different potentially, what is the same is the process of seeking information and being willing to offer it, and that’s the key point.
</p>
<h4 id="HjzbhF">
Rani Molla<strong> </strong>
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AFSUWJ">
It seems lawmakers could learn a lot from <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23151852/gun-violence-cars-crashes-firearms-deaths-youth">industries other than the firearm industry</a>.
</p>
<h4 id="FsfvZ3">
Sheldon H. Jacobson<strong> </strong>
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Gx4la8">
The auto industry as well as the airline industry are always looking at continuous improvement of their processes. When there is an airplane accident, the National Transportation Safety Board goes in, does a root cause analysis, determines what happened, and then implements policies and procedures so that it won’t happen again on another flight. The auto industry has continued to improve automobiles in a manner that there’s more safety features built-in. And some of them have become laws and policies — safety belt use, for example. All of these industries continue improving. And you see it in the fact that there are fewer accidents and fewer deaths.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EYKvLq">
Every industry that wants to compete has to continue to improve, and government policies should be designed to improve the well-being of Americans and, ultimately, everybody who lives in the country. This is an issue that’s not seen improvement. Why aren’t we improving when everything else in our DNA says we should be improving?
</p>
<h4 id="OxWO2H">
Rani Molla<strong> </strong>
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="aKdCGL">
Again then, why is the gun industry different?
</p>
<h4 id="jmfq6V">
Sheldon H. Jacobson<strong> </strong>
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KAaauS">
That’s the question I keep posing. And that’s why I’ve come up with all these examples of things that we do routinely and accept. But when it comes to issues surrounding firearms, for some reason, walls go up and it’s like, “No, we can’t change.” And if we don’t change anything, we’re going to keep getting the same result.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RnYGB3">
I think people call that insanity: doing the same actions expecting different results. Well, we’re doing the same thing over and over again, and we’re getting the same results. So the question is, is this acceptable? And most of us will agree now it’s not acceptable.
</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>The kids who have never known life without Covid-19</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/hsVBtVKtSMi1NDtjra-nnyO-iCk=/0x0:3200x2400/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/70950667/01DSCF7602.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Bess Adler
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
What the pandemic took from America’s youngest children — and how to help them get it back.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="eJ4qkh">
It’s 10 am, and the flower shop at Classroom 9 is open for business.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gVErCk">
Nataly, 5, is the cashier, presiding over a toy register and a vibrant array of cloth roses, carnations, and orchids. Arlet, also 5, mops the floor. Their teacher, Rawshan Khanam, is the first customer. For a modest bouquet, Nataly quotes her a price of $50.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VFJsm1">
Aside from a bit of sticker shock (<a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22994731/inflation-rate-russia-gas-prices-jerome-powell">inflation</a> has clearly hit the preschool flower market), it seems like the most ordinary interaction in the world: a couple of little kids and their teacher playing store. The students at the Child Center of New York Corona Head Start program in Corona, Queens, however, spent some of their most crucial formative years in a pandemic, when going to the store — or anywhere else — was no longer so simple.
</p>
<div class="c-wide-block">
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/D8_KpBJy2kRqvx6nZBMvR6h9ebA=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23607315/36F93A5121.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Nataly pretends to be a cashier in a flower shop in Rawshan Khanam’s preschool classroom at the Child Center of New York Corona Head Start in Queens, on April 7.
</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zx6dUI">
That history keeps coming up even now that they’re attending preschool at the Corona Head Start program, which serves low-income kids in a part of New York City hard-hit by Covid. Khanam is reminded of everything her students have missed out on when she asks them about once-common childhood experiences. “Have you ever been to a museum? No. Have you ever been to a beach? No. Have you ever been to a library? No,” she said. “It’s so much ‘no’ in their lives.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="P2nRhW">
At this point, two and a half years into the pandemic, many kids have begun to catch up on experiences they missed. Children under 5, however, <a href="https://www.vox.com/22914701/covid-19-vaccine-children-kids-babies-omicron-pfizer">still aren’t able to be vaccinated</a>, leaving some families unsure how much return to normalcy is really safe — or possible. At the same time, infants, toddlers, and preschoolers have gone through crucial years of early social and emotional development at a time of trauma and isolation for many Americans. Many spent some of their earliest months on lockdown, often interacting only with family and missing out on small but real learning experiences like playing in a sandbox or going to the grocery store. Many of their caregivers went through extreme stress as well, which can affect children even before they’re born.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dZbTwS">
Psychologists, educators, and other experts are still learning what it means for little kids to be born into the biggest public health crisis in a generation. Some of the news is concerning: <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/2787479">one study</a>, for example, found that babies born during the pandemic were slightly behind their pre-pandemic counterparts on measures of motor and social development. Parents and teachers are also worried about young children’s language development after long periods of isolation and mask-wearing. “Their speech is so delayed,” Khanam said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="d2r7uP">
The picture that’s emerging, though, is not as bleak as some might fear. Experts agree that young children’s still-developing brains are uncommonly good at bouncing back from and adapting to new realities — even difficult ones. “Children are really resilient, and anything that they’re experiencing during this pandemic probably prepares them well for future stressors,” said Moriah Thomason, a human developmental neuroscientist at New York University.
</p>
<div class="c-wide-block">
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="A line of young children in blue T-shirts waits by a sink, talking to each other." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ycQkbUY0-BOPU5HtwCalqLZnY_8=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23607328/01DSCF7602.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Amelia, Arlet, Jazleny, Sahira, and Nathaly wait in line to wash their hands before eating.
</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="si1kh6">
Today’s youngest children could actually emerge from this pandemic better equipped for what the next few years hold than adults who were already set in their ways when lockdown began. In order to heal and learn the lessons they missed out on in the pandemic’s earlier days, however, they need help — counseling, speech therapy, and other supports that are often in short supply as school systems and city governments continue to reel from the effects of the pandemic. As Khanam put it, “They’re resilient, they’re survivors, but they need services.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WP0fk8">
The first five years are widely regarded as some of the most important, developmentally, of a child’s life. During the earliest years, children establish the neural architecture they’ll build on throughout their lives — Thomason likens it to the foundation and scaffolding of a building. The first few years of life are also “a period of high neuroplasticity” when the brain is changing rapidly and environmental influences are especially important, Thomason said. “Disruptions in this period are associated with bigger long-term outcomes, as if you’ve opened a chasm.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ePn4OE">
The pandemic has certainly been rife with disruptions. Many babies and young children interacted only with immediate family for months at a time. For Rene, now 5 and one of the students in Khanam’s class, not being around his peers had a severe impact, his mom, Lucia Hernandez, said through an interpreter. She even noticed his skin becoming discolored during lockdown, which she believes was a symptom of stress.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kQ0os8">
Kids’ opportunities for experiencing the wider world were also severely curtailed. At the beginning of lockdown, Bella, now 4, couldn’t even go to the park, her grandmother, Gladys Vasquez, recalled. Even when she and her big sister True were allowed to go out again, they couldn’t play with other kids. “The park is not that much fun when they’re by themselves,” said Vasquez, who lives with the girls on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, where Bella now attends a <a href="https://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/programs/article/head-start-programs">Head Start</a> program.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6Q6rMK">
While older kids attended school remotely, those under 5 often had no social outlets, even virtual ones, beyond their household. This age group was “more socially isolated than any other population,” said Jennifer March, executive director of the Citizens’ Committee for Children of New York, a child advocacy organization.
</p>
<div class="c-wide-block">
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="In a busy preschool classroom with young children doing various activities, a girl with black hair and a mask on fits large puzzle pieces together on a table." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/r5_2SoWd2X7iLnLNO2lGQa1owlc=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23607362/43F93A5206.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Nataly works on a puzzle.
</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4WlhOQ">
The youngest kids may have begun feeling the effects of the pandemic before they were even born. When the crisis began, researchers at Columbia University set out to study the impact of maternal Covid-19 infection on babies. The good news is the impact was negligible: The team <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/2787479">found no developmental differences</a> between babies whose moms had been infected during pregnancy and babies whose moms had not.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="b2grbL">
Then the researchers compared all the babies in their sample to babies born before the pandemic began. Here they did find differences: Babies born during the pandemic, regardless of whether they’d actually been exposed to Covid in utero, scored slightly lower than their pre-pandemic counterparts on measures of gross motor, fine motor, and personal/social skills.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GGLdzB">
When the researchers drilled down further, they found the largest effect among babies whose mothers were in their first trimester when the pandemic first hit American shores in early 2020. They believe the cause may be prenatal exposure to maternal stress. “I have a 2-year-old who was born during peak pandemic,” said Lauren Shuffrey, an associate research scientist at Columbia University Medical Center who worked on the research. “It was a very stressful time for mothers.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="19Lcu5">
Her team is not the only one to find differences between kids born before the pandemic and those born since. Researchers at Brown University found that infants’ scores on tests of language, motor, and visual skills began dropping in 2020, as <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00027-4">Melinda Wenner Moyer reported in <em>Nature</em></a>. The differences were greatest in boys and babies from low-income families; motor skills were the most affected; and rather than resolving, the gaps appeared to widen as the pandemic went on. “The magnitude is massive — it’s just astonishing,” medical biophysicist Sean Deoni, who worked on the research, told <em>Nature</em>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2uvDG5">
Anecdotally, families and teachers, too, see impacts of the pandemic on young children. Bella has had issues with her speech, such as stuttering, that her grandmother attributes in part to isolation. “She was always home and not having someone always constantly teaching [her] something,” Vasquez said. “It’s hard for her to express herself verbally.”
</p>
<div class="c-wide-block">
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="A young girl with a blue T-shirt practices writing letters on a sheet of paper, with a pencil box nearby on the table. " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/QFyDWxL7_c8gNdnHujjyTkuZc5c=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23607326/03F93A4912.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Ariadne practices writing.
</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XFxJqu">
Rene, meanwhile, was receiving speech therapy before the pandemic started. During lockdown, the therapy switched to Zoom, which just wasn’t the same, Hernandez said. It was a common problem — <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1936657421002478">one study</a> of school-aged children with disabilities found that 42 percent lost access to all therapy services during the first four months of the pandemic, and 34 percent got at least one therapy remotely. Meanwhile, 40 percent of parents saw declines in kids’ motor, behavioral, social, or communication skills that they attributed to the change in therapy.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OdrOn2">
The interruption in services had particular implications for the youngest kids. In normal times, if daycare or preschool teachers notice a child showing signs of a developmental delay or disability, they can refer the child for early intervention services, <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/actearly/parents/states.html">available in every state</a>, that can help. Constrained state budgets can make it hard to get access to these services, even in the best of times, but “if something little is going on at 12 months, it’s so much better to intervene then,” rather than waiting until the child is 5 or 6, said Bridget O’Rourke, associate executive director for early childhood education at the social services agency University Settlement.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="raP3oW">
During lockdown, though, “early intervention services essentially came to a halt,” O’Rourke said. Kids who were already getting therapies often stopped getting them, and many who would otherwise have been identified as having a delay or disability simply were not. Now those services have started up again, but there’s still a backlog to work through, and many families aren’t getting help in a timely fashion.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kVnP9K">
Then there are the more intangible effects of the pandemic, the myriad small losses like flower shops, beaches, and libraries. Khanam pointed to psychologist Lev Vygotsky’s <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/pltlearningcontent/overview-theorists/lev-semyonovich-vygotsky">sociocultural theory of learning</a>, which posits that children <a href="https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-sociocultural-theory-2795088">learn through social interaction</a> with adults, other kids, and their culture as a whole. During lockdown, children missed out on countless opportunities to interact with other people, and their social environment still isn’t what it was before the pandemic began, Khanam said. “They didn’t learn how to share; they didn’t learn how to be compassionate about others.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="isoVbA">
“If you look at the theory, and look at this group,” she said, “we missed a big part of their life — like a big, big chunk.”
</p>
<div class="p-fullbleed-block">
<div class="c-image-grid">
<div class="c-image-grid__item">
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="Two young boys in blue T-shirts wash their hands at two separate sinks, watched by their teacher." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/QHEWECgYuVJm96Tmd_JVRsHyYwU=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23607340/02DSCF7612.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
A pair of Khaman’s students wash their hands before eating.
</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
<div class="c-image-grid__item">
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="A teacher crouches down at a low table, where two young girls are eating, and talks to them. " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/5FNhk879yFSAS1y1WULY2J-PzWE=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23607327/13F93A4965.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Khanam chats with students Ruby and Nathaly during breakfast.
</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2r8lAi">
Even now, a day at Corona Head Start isn’t quite what it was before Covid hit. Parents drop their kids off at the front door instead of coming into the building. Teachers used to eat breakfast and lunch with the kids; now they serve up pancakes, bananas, and milk and keep their masks on while the students eat. When the kids lean in to gossip with each other over breakfast, a teacher has to remind them not to get too close without their masks on.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0P5daY">
Fortunately for young children and their families, however, many of the losses of the pandemic can be repaired. For one thing, even though the effects of stress can begin in the womb, adaptation can start there too. Thomason points to the “Dutch Hunger Winter” of 1944-1945, during which pregnant women had to subsist on as little as 600 calories per day. Research later revealed that their babies were born metabolically prepared for a low-calorie diet.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gOtW6F">
“Our biology is so attuned to the situation,” Thomason said. A pandemic is different from a famine, but the past suggests that children will adjust to this experience, too. “Even though we think about early development as a time of heightened, let’s say, vulnerability,” she said, “it’s also a time when the brain is very plastic and well prepared to adapt.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OJdSUw">
Indeed, the youngest children have sometimes adjusted better to the realities of the pandemic than their elders, who remember and miss the way things used to be. Bella’s older sister True, now 7, was upset and stressed during lockdown, sad to be missing in-person school, Vasquez said. For Bella, “it really didn’t affect her too much” emotionally. “She was a happy-go-lucky young lady.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Ue23FL">
Some research even suggests positive effects, not necessarily of the pandemic itself, but of increased time spent with family. According to an analysis by Thomason, in households where parents experienced more added responsibilities as a result of the pandemic — for example, because they were <a href="https://19thnews.org/2021/08/moms-child-care-pandemic-full-time-job/">working from home and taking care of children</a> at the same time — children actually had better outcomes than in homes where parents’ responsibilities were less.
</p>
<div class="c-wide-block">
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="A large group of young children in masks dance and move inside a preschool classroom. " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/djJNmt23sta3Qi8aVSMVrjjOHlY=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23607354/64DSCF7799.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Ariadne dances with her classmates.
</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="eUKCNX">
Trying to work while caring for kids during a deadly pandemic was <a href="https://www.vox.com/22060380/covid-parents-burnout-schools-closed-kids-pandemic">deeply stressful</a> for many parents, and millions of essential workers never had the choice to stay home at all. For parents who could, however, those burnout-inducing months (or years) may have had a silver lining for kids’ development. “Maybe what we were seeing was families that were more impacted in terms of parenting roles during the pandemic actually were spending more time with their children, and their children were actually experiencing the benefits,” Thomason said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WMWu49">
Young children may also have spent more time with older siblings, which research shows is beneficial for cognitive and language development, Thomason said. As difficult as the pandemic has been, she believes it’s important not to assume the last two years have been wholly negative for children.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RdR0LT">
“My strategy as a scientist, researcher, and mother has been to allow discussion of positives to come into the conversation,” Thomason explained. “There’s a degree to which, as a society, we are responsible for writing self-fulfilling prophecies in terms of what we take away from our experiences.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Fgs9kX">
Where research does point to problems as a result of the pandemic, there’s no reason to assume they will be lifelong. Shuffrey, the Columbia researcher, pointed out that her research was conducted on very young babies, and the differences her team found were small. “It’s not as though a screening tool at six months is predictive of one’s future,” she said. “Kids are so resilient that I have no doubt that these kids are going to be okay. But it’s still important to continue to monitor and provide support, if and when needed.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mtPFZW">
It’s a message sent by educators and researchers alike: Now is not the time for defeatism over what young kids have lost in the pandemic, but for action. At Corona Head Start, what’s most needed is more staff to help kids who need speech therapy, early intervention, and other services, said Lillian Rodriguez-Magliaro, senior program director at the facility. Because of a statewide shortage of educators, some students at the school were identified as needing additional services in the fall and still haven’t received them. “What’s going to happen to the children that don’t get served?” Rodriguez-Magliaro said. “Our kids are moving into kindergarten.”
</p>
<div>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="A group of young children, all in blue T-shirts, sits on the floor and listens to their teacher, who stands at the front of the room pointing to words on a large poster on the wall." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/FXXbdCRc_IuIJBiC0SuRNlEMl-c=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23607347/26F93A5046.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Khanam teaches a lesson to her class.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="A young girl with two black braids and a blue T-shirt sits with her back to the camera, listening to her teacher and surrounded by her classmates." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/FCuYPMd4o6pL1o1GvHhyfn9bIQU=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23607330/31F93A5089.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Ariadne sits and listens.
</figcaption>
</figure></div></li>
</ul>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PP0DpD">
It’s an especially urgent concern for low-income families like those the Corona program serves, who can’t afford to pay for private therapies or other services outside of school. These families have already shouldered a disproportionate share of the pandemic’s trauma — indeed, Corona, one of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/01/nyregion/queens-ny-covid-recovery.html">the first Covid epicenters in the country</a>, has lost hundreds of residents to the virus. Many parents, like Hernandez, who works as a housecleaner, were unemployed during lockdown in 2020, and many in the area <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/01/nyregion/queens-ny-covid-recovery.html">still struggle to find jobs</a>. Others worked outside the home as essential workers.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6wfvqZ">
Their kids often did not experience an increase in family bonding time the way children of remote-working parents did. Thomason believes the benefits of increased parental interaction during the pandemic are probably concentrated among middle- and upper-middle-class kids, whose parents were able to be home with them in relative safety and financial security. The economic disparity in the pandemic’s impact “is probably the most significant thing we should all be talking about,” she said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7QD9C3">
Remedying that disparity will mean closing the gap in access to services — which costs money. One big reason for the shortage of educators and other in-school service providers is low pay brought on by years of budget cuts, Rodriguez-Magliaro said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AElnCq">
“Teachers need to be paid more,” O’Rourke, of University Settlement, said. That’s especially the case for early childhood educators, who make less than elementary and high school teachers even though they work longer days and school years.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4hx9NW">
Families, too, need support to help them care for kids during an ongoing pandemic, experts say. That includes paid leave to be with children who are sick with Covid or quarantined after an exposure, Shuffrey said — something that remains a common occurrence, especially at daycares and preschools where kids are too young to be vaccinated. It also includes help with child care access. “Child care costs have gone up so significantly in the US in the past two years,” Shuffrey said. “Being able to provide families with child care that they can afford, so they can do things like work or take care of another family member, could be really, really supportive on a more structural level.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KtzviK">
The children born into the pandemic also need a culture that values them as people, rather than dismissing them as some kind of lost generation. “Stop labeling them ‘pandemic children,’” Rodriguez-Magliaro said. “It’s easy to label so that you don’t have to reflect on the need.”
</p>
<div class="c-wide-block">
<div class="c-image-grid">
<div class="c-image-grid__item">
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="A teacher’s gloved hand passes a glass jar with plants and caterpillars inside it around a group of young children, who are looking at it. " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/zPyO25LpPYUo8Nsq4XbtrhXTGzc=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23607350/34F93A5110.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Melanie and Shirly look at a jar of caterpillars forming cocoons.
</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
<div class="c-image-grid__item">
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="A young girl in a blue T-shirt and yellow skirt lies on a colorful foam mat and plays with a container full of plastic action figures." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/5RFeqWxRtmRqw5NjysBaGW3UWM0=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23607351/39F93A5163.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Sahira plays with action figures during playtime.
</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
</div>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="A circle of preschool children in blue T-shirts lift their arms along with their teacher in a group exercise." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/aeHR7kxHD4nc6myaiBfEvs8lDfE=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23607332/59F93A5287.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Khanam leads her students in group exercises.
</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MiC34z">
Despite the challenges, she and others at the Child Center are surrounded by examples that kids can thrive with the right support, even in times that remain difficult. When Rene was able to go back to school in September 2020 and began receiving his speech therapy services in person again, his communication skills quickly improved, Hernandez said. “You can tell that there’s been a change.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="R1hS3i">
Today, he’s an energetic 5-year-old who hams it up while dancing to “I’m a Gummy Bear” and crowds to the front of the room with his friends when it’s time to look at the class caterpillar, who’s almost ready to form a cocoon. When he starts playing at the classroom’s sand table, his classmate Ruby clamors to join him.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UMoozb">
Despite their time in isolation, the kids in Classroom 9 share a palpable affection for each other now. They hold hands during dance time, build pretend houses for each other, squabble over plastic butterflies and then make the butterflies hug. A school day for them involves “a lot of complaining, a lot of giggling, a lot of running, a lot of correcting,” Khanam said, “And at the same time, a lot of love.”
</p>
<p class="c-end-para" data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WJkInu">
“When they grow up, I want to see them successful,” she says of the 18 preschoolers she teaches every day. And for policymakers and people in power, she has a simple ask: “Treat them as human beings.”
</p>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Have full trust in Hockey India but every federation has to abide by sports code: FIH</strong> - FIH is all set to host the first Hockey 5s World Cup in 2024</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Imperial Power, Prince O’ War, Ashwa Yudhvir, English Bay and A Star Is Born shine</strong> -</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Pakistan hosts West Indies for ODI series in intense heat</strong> - Pakistan will host the West Indies in a three-match ODI series in Multan, starting June 8, at a time when the country is reeling under political uncertainities and heatwave.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Ranji Trophy | Mumbai’s Suved Parkar joins elite club with debut double hundred</strong> - In the Ranji Trophy quarterfinal between Mumbai and Uttarakhand, Suved Parkar — standing in for the injured Ajinkya Rahane — scored a double century, making him only the 12th Indian to do it on First-Class debut</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>In Brazil, the land of football, women’s cricket thrives</strong> - Defying stereotypes, Brazil is emerging as a force to be reckoned with in cricket, especially the women’s national team, who were given professional contracts in 2020 — making the country the first in the world to take its women’s team pro before the men’s</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>CBI takes over probe in rape and murder case of 14-year-old student of Noida school</strong> - The Supreme Court’s order comes after an appeal from the victim’s mother who alleged that it was a heinous crime of rape and murder, followed by abduction of family members.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>ED seizes ₹2.85 crore cash, 133 gold coins after raids against Delhi Minister Satyendar Jain</strong> - Satyendar Jain was arrested on May 30 under the criminal sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and is in ED custody till June 9</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Kerala government revives Meenachil river valley project after four decades</strong> - Government appoints six-member panel to study proposal</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Andhra Pradesh: Varla Ramaiah alleges ‘VIP treatment’ to jailed MLC</strong> - The TDP leader urges Director General of Prisons to inquire into the issue</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Andhra Pradesh: TTD launches scheme to help infants with cardiac ailments</strong> - Cost of medicines, surgical material and implants to be funded from donations</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Ukraine war: EU blames Russia for food crisis prompting walkout</strong> - Ukraine is a major exporter of grain and cooking oil but the war has cut off supplies at ports.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Eurostar: Call for ‘swift’ resumption of service in Kent</strong> - Officials say no decision will be made until later in 2022 amid ongoing talks with Kent authorities.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Croatia 1-1 France: Les Bleus yet to win in Nations League</strong> - Nations League champions France are on one point from two games after being held by Croatia in Split.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Kamila Valieva: Skating minimum age to be raised to 17 following Olympic controversy</strong> - The International Skating Union will raise the minimum age for competitors in senior events from 15 to 17 after the controversy surrounding Kamila Valieva at the Beijing Olympic Games.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>MPs condemn chaotic scenes at Paris final</strong> - Concerns over France’s suitability to host sporting events have been raised in the Commons.</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</h1>
<ul>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Microsoft won’t say if it will patch critical Windows vulnerability under exploit</strong> - Slow to act on the code execution bug from the start, company is still in no hurry. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1859305">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>With BA.2.12.1 now dominant in US, experts eye new subvariants BA.4 and BA.5</strong> - New data suggests BA.4, BA.5 are better at evading immune responses than BA.2.12.1. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1859291">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Dreamy first teaser for The Sandman helps kick off Netflix’s Geeked Week</strong> - Also: <em>Locke &amp; Key</em> S3, <em>The Midnight Club</em>, <em>Resident Evil</em>, <em>Wednesday</em>, and more. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1858677">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>iPadOS 16 has lots of updates, but new multitasking features require an M1 chip</strong> - Plus the iPad finally has a Weather app! - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1858396">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Here’s a first look at Apple’s redesigned M2 MacBook Air</strong> - Plus, photos of the dual-port charger that comes with it. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1859175">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>A couple, after a rather successful first date and are heading back to the guy’s apartment.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
As the guy reaches for his keys, the girl says, “Oh, this part usually tells me how a guy is in bed. If a guy fumbles around trying to get the key into the lock, it means he hasn’t had much experience and has no idea what he’s doing, but if the guy just jams the key in, it means he’s very forceful and demanding, and that’s no good either. Now let’s see how you do.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“Alright then,” Says the guy with a smirk on his face. He then proceeds to lick the lock.
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/SilentJoe27"> /u/SilentJoe27 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/v6hhr8/a_couple_after_a_rather_successful_first_date_and/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/v6hhr8/a_couple_after_a_rather_successful_first_date_and/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><strong>An African leader makes an official trip to Russia.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
As he’s leaving, the Russian leader tells him that in Russia they have a farewell custom called “Russian Roulette”, to demonstrate one’s courage.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The Russian whips out a revolver, loads one chamber, gives the cylinder a spin, puts the gun to his head and pulls the trigger…
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Click! Empty chamber.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
He hands the revolver to his African guest and says," Your turn."
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Not to be outdone, the African repeats the ritual… Click! Empty.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The next year, the Russian visits his counterpart in his country.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
As he’s leaving, the African tells him that he was very impressed with “Russian Roulette” and that he has devised an African ritual to demonstrate one’s courage.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The African then disappears through a door, only to reappear a few minutes later smiling and says, “Your turn.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The African escorts the Russian through the door.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
In the room are 6 of the most beautiful, naked women he has ever seen.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The African explains that he is to choose 1 of the women, who will perform oral sex on him.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Absolutely dumbfounded, the Russian asks, “What kind of test of courage is this?”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The African calmly answers,
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“One of them is a cannibal.”
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/AkaGurGor"> /u/AkaGurGor </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/v6oqtf/an_african_leader_makes_an_official_trip_to_russia/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/v6oqtf/an_african_leader_makes_an_official_trip_to_russia/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><strong>How many dead whores do you need to change a light bulb?</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
I don’t know. But it must be more than 8, because my basment is still dark af.
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Don_Corle1"> /u/Don_Corle1 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/v686uk/how_many_dead_whores_do_you_need_to_change_a/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/v686uk/how_many_dead_whores_do_you_need_to_change_a/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><strong>My mom died because I couldnt remember her blood type</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
She kept saying “be positive” but it’s going to be hard when she’s not around
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Kooky-Meat506"> /u/Kooky-Meat506 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/v6mvop/my_mom_died_because_i_couldnt_remember_her_blood/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/v6mvop/my_mom_died_because_i_couldnt_remember_her_blood/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><strong>What do you call a Mexican Jedi?</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Obi-Juan
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/bravestar3030"> /u/bravestar3030 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/v6loou/what_do_you_call_a_mexican_jedi/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/v6loou/what_do_you_call_a_mexican_jedi/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
</ul>
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